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Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

nytimes.com

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Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#251

Post by nuc1e0n »

sfink wrote: post #149
Teever wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose a downside (depending on your perspective) of this is that it will make people who are genetically modified in this fashion trivial to detect. That's good if your goals are to detect genetic modification which may be considered cheating in competitive sports. That's bad if your goals are to detect genetically modified people and discriminate against them. I see a near future where the kind of people who loa…

Careful with qualifiers there. I genuinely believe that vaccines can spread illness to the non-vaccinated, since it has happened many times and is well-documented. For example, it's why only the inactivated (aka "dead" virus) polio vaccine has been used in the US since 2000. I'm not arguing about whether the risks of the attenuated virus outweigh the benefits. I think the data are very clear there. (Heh -- and I'm su…

At one time organ transplants were considered an ethical grey area (perhaps they still are by some), but I think most people now would consider it better to save lives in such a manner when it only brings help to those who need it and it's possible to, compared to the alternative. Having the capability may mean that things like organ theft now exist, but the benefits around the world outweigh the nastiness that has always come as part of human nature.

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#254

Post by burnt-resistor »

jjcm wrote: post #219
danielodievich wrote: post #213

When my second son was born and was just so very tiny some genetic test came out questionable. We were very strongly encouraged to go to Childrens hospital ASAP to get more tests. He handled it well, being just a few weeks old. The tests came with "he's a carrier of something obscure but nothing to worry about", so it's all forgotten. Three interesting thing come out of it from me. First, I was on Microsoft insurance…

> I was on Microsoft insurance which was quite gold plated at a time One of the biggest perks of working for Microsoft for a long time was their health coverage. I can't tell you the number of times I'd be doing initial paperwork for a doctor's appointment and the receptionist would be like, "Oh you have THAT insurance, we're going to do all of the tests." I've heard they since cut back on it a little, but it truly w…

Circa 2005, Stanford FTEs had nine (9) health insurance plan choices. ;P

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#255

Post by Balgair »

maxerickson wrote: post #244
VierScar wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean? Is mRNA not used to produce the enzyme that these comments mentioned? I don't think they were saying mRNA is gene editing itself. Just commenting on a modified mRNA helping the process compared to normal mRNA. Might be misunderstanding though so correct me if I am

I dunno, I think they are being sloppy and conflating things. We can induce manufacture of proteins and can design proteins that carry out gene editing, so we can stack that knowledge together to induce cells to manufacture proteins that carry out gene edits, but it's the payload that is the gene editing, not the instruction to make the protein. Given the merry movement to call the COVID vaccines gene editing, it ran…

Hey, yeah, I'm not the most up to date on the current methods. Most of my knowhow is a bit out of date here. So thanks for piping up to correct things.

Do you know of any good resources that I can use to get up to speed on the exact methods they used for the baby?

My understanding, outdated as it is, is that we're using the mRNA to go in and create CRISPR-CAS9 slicers/dicers and additionally to that, the correct genes (not mRNA) to get stitched in. I would love to know more about how I am wrong here, as I am sure I'm not even close to really understanding it.

Thanks!

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#256

Post by Balgair »

monkeycantype wrote: post #171
Balgair wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One other fun part of gene editing in vivo is that we don't actually use GACU (T in DNA). It turns out that if you use Pseudouridine (Ψ) instead of uridine (U) then the body's immune system doesn't nearly alarm as much, as it doesn't really see that mRNA as quite so dangerous. But , the RNA -> Protein equipment will just make protiens it without any problems. Which, yeah, that's a miraculous discovery. And it was wel…

I remember from a few few years back that the lipid coating may have caused problems for the liver, when treating people for diseases that needed to target a lot of tissue, such as muscle disorders. Is that still the case?

Unfortunately, I do not know. Sorry here.

If anyone else does know, please chime in!

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#257

Post by alexashka »

silver_silver wrote: post #217
alexashka wrote: post #209

[flagged]

What an insanely callous and shallow take. I don’t even know where to start. You’re trying to claim the moral high ground by complaining that a privileged child didn’t suffer and die? Do you even understand the point of reducing poverty?

[flagged]

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#259

Post by fendy3002 »

tuna-piano wrote: post #224

If someone in the year 2050 was to pick out the most important news article from 2025, I won't be surprised if they choose this one. For those who don't understand this stuff - we are now capable of editing some of a body's DNA in ways that predictably change their attributes. The baby's liver now has different (and better) DNA than the rest of its body. We still are struggling in most cases with how to deliver the D…

the usual next questions will be:

- how further can we push this to make the best, most optimized human?

- what are moral implication of this?

- what are the side effects / downsides?

Re: Baby is healed with first personalized gene-editing treatment

#260

Post by piloto_ciego »

gr_norm wrote: post #227
silver_silver wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What an insanely callous and shallow take. I don’t even know where to start. You’re trying to claim the moral high ground by complaining that a privileged child didn’t suffer and die? Do you even understand the point of reducing poverty?

An absolutely terrible and tone-deaf way to phrase that thought, but the fact of the matter is that most of the world (you and I included, in all likelihood) will not get access to this sort of thing in our lifetimes. Not because modern medicine won't have been there yet, but because our lives (and those of our children) are simply seen as being worth significantly less than a rich person's desire to become richer. H…

So obviously we should not be excited about it? Lose me with that noise.
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